Black for a Funeral: A cosy mystery set in Scotland (The Wronged Women's Co-operative Book 7) by T E Scott

Author:T E Scott [Scott, T E]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shuna Publishing
Published: 2024-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 23: Mary

Mr Geffrey, the retired Head Teacher of Invergryff High, had the tidiest house that Mary had ever seen. It was actually starting to make her feel nervous. Not a single item was out of place. In the living room, where she had been shown when she arrived, the remote control was perpendicular to the TV guide on the table and there was a perfectly placed coaster in each of the four corners. It was unsettling, not only because Mary hadn’t realised that paper TV guides still existed.

The other thing that was making her nervous was that the man was a former teacher. Mary had always been bright, so school should have been a breeze, but she was a terrible daydreamer. This meant that she was continually getting told off for not paying attention, even though her actual school work had always been good. In fact –

“Are you all right, Mrs Plunkett? Only you haven’t said anything for several minutes.”

Mary blushed. “Yes, sorry. Just gathering my thoughts.”

“Would you like a biscuit?”

Normally Mary was the biscuit queen, but she politely declined. The idea of leaving crumbs behind on the cream leather sofa was giving her hives.

“Thank you for agreeing to speak to me,” she said once she had taken a very careful sip of tea. “It’s been very tricky trying to track someone down that knew Michael and Joyce Bute.”

“I’m not surprised,” Mr Geffrey said. He had elected for a black coffee that he was using to warm his thin hands. He was probably heading for eighty, but had the straight back and sharp eyes of someone younger. “They always kept to themselves, even as children. Quiet, withdrawn even. You know that there was some social work involvement.”

Mary nodded. “My colleague spoke to their social worker, Mrs Cookes.”

“Ah, yes, Emily Cookes. We did a lot of work together back in the nineties. You know, Invergryff was a lot more deprived back then. The eighties were a tough time with the shipyards closing and a lot of people left unemployed. In the nineties, the town was only just starting to recover. Yes, we had a lot of contact with the social work department.”

“And Michael and Joyce Bute were two of those cases.”

Mr Geffrey nodded. “It was Emily that first brought them to my attention. As I said, no one had taken much notice of them in school at first. I know that sounds bad, but they weren’t the sort of kids that got noticed. They were bright enough not to be really struggling with the work, and not badly behaved enough to get in major trouble.”

“So why did social work get involved?”

“Because of the mother,” Mr Geffrey explained. He paused for a moment and all that Mary could hear was the tick of the clock in hallway. “Emily was worried that she might be neglecting the children. And although they always attended school on time and were clean and tidy, there were some signs that that might have been the case. They were very timid, didn’t talk at all about their home life and didn’t have any friends.

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